Yahoo Finance Budget 2022: Decimated tourism industry asks for big handout
The struggling tourism industry is asking for significant financial support in the upcoming Federal Budget after two years of COVID lockdowns, restrictions and border closures decimated the sector.
Yahoo Finance spoke to Queensland Tourism Industry Council (QTIC) CEO Daniel Gschwind about what the industry is requesting in this year’s Budget, which will likely serve as an election sweetener as the Coalition attempts to avoid a widely tipped election defeat.
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Gschwind, who is also a member of the Australian Tourism Industry Council (ATIC), said ATIC had submitted an eight-point policy plan it wanted addressed by the Federal Government to cover two years of massive losses experienced by tourism operators across the nation.
Rebuilding the tourism workforce
He said “top of the list” was gaining government assistance in addressing a decimated workforce and investing in new tourist attractions.
Other big-ticket items include increasing internet connectivity, protecting iconic heritage items and addressing crippling insurance costs.
“We have to reactivate and fund the appropriate attraction of overseas workers, skilled and other categories, to help us with our labour pool,” Gschwind said.
“That involves working on the visa conditions and charges for visas and so on, but we also have to be really strong and support the industry to attract Australians into long-term careers.
"We have to have support in increasing skill levels and in expanding our tourism quality framework, which is an accreditation framework that focuses on business capability improvement.”
Tourist attractions require investment
Gschwind said the industry also needed financial support to foster demand-driving attractions.
“[This] means co-investment in some catalytic infrastructure, as has happened in the past very successfully with things like the Qantas museum in Longreach and other co-investments that have a strong analytic impact on attracting more visitors to a destination," he said.
“Internet access and connectivity is a big deal for us as tourism happens across regional Australia, and we still have some gaps that make it difficult to conduct business and deliver top-class experiences for visitors as well.
Insurance costs 'crippling' tourism
Gschwind pointed to growing insurance costs as creating added difficulty for tourism operators already on their knees from COVID, and called on the Government to intervene to allow operators to continue providing experiences tourists wanted.
“Insurance is crippling our industry ... lack of insurance cover, or cost of insurance is a major issue,” he said.
“We have seen businesses limit their activity, such as outdoor activity or physical activity, which is very popular, but it’s almost impossible to insure that.
"Many tourism experiences take place in the wilderness, in natural environments and it’s becoming increasingly difficult to insure appropriately, particularly public liability and property.
“Our industry is dramatically affected by that so there needs to be some government involvement in this.”
Australia's 'healthy' reputation
With international borders reopening after two years of hard closure to tourists, local operators are keen to take advantage of returning international tourists that are expected to flock to “safe” places like Australia.
“We have a fairly good reputation as a healthy place, as having been relatively less devastated by COVID than other places, so our reputation as a healthy place has probably been enhanced rather than diminished,” Gschwind said.
“Once we can rebuild the confidence about our borders, we will be in a very strong position. We have what the world wants. We have open space, we have clean environment, clean air, clean oceans so I think that these are very strong attributes for global tourism."
Working holiday makers require wooing
Gschwind said particular attention needed to be paid to enticing working holiday makers to return to our shores after being shown the door during the border closure.
“We do have to rebuild our relationship with the working holiday visa makers, who were here at the time and I think not treated well.
“There was no support made available for those temporary visa holders. They were basically told to go home after they supported us by working, paying taxes, and when COVID hit, we just abandoned them.
"That was not good for our reputation so I think we have to rebuild that relationship.
“They’ve made incredibly important contributions to us in the past. In regional Australia we need them back."
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